I thought I’d share this deck, as it is the first one I’ve thought to publish on netrunner db, and figured I’d see what people thought of it. So basically, like whateveryoneelseonearthdoes…basically.
The Code Gate Experience
Tennin Institute: The Secrets Within (Honor and Profit)
Agenda (10)
1x Eden Fragment (The Spaces Between)
3x Encrypted Portals (The Spaces Between)
3x NAPD Contract (Double Time)
1x Philotic Entanglement (Honor and Profit)
2x The Future Perfect (Honor and Profit)
Asset (3)
1x Executive Boot Camp (All That Remains) •
2x Jackson Howard (Opening Moves) ••
this actually looks pretty fun and potentially frustrating for runner. any reason why sensei over inazuma? inazuma can potentially trap after chum (who runs through chum though), but i reckon the second sub will generally be useless. sensei probably better. also, the third wormhole is tempting as tennin. it can be free pretty quick. tollbooth is the best cg in the game, though. 2 jackson better call over 2 ebc, although ebc can’t fetch upgrades so why not just play 3 jackson? i dont think youll find yourself using ebc for econ much.
encrypted portals is a nice experiment, but after playing some maybe swap those to medical breakthrough. it’s too strong in tennin to not play, IMO.
here’s a list I would play. I might bring this without testing to my LGS tomorrow, it seems potentially decent
Modeled after Polish Tennin. an advantage here is that you can score out of remote, which means you can install med breakthru and not advance, and then score in your next turn. same goes for napd. since i don’t want to run ice wall, i used that 3 influence for viper, which is good yog.0 hate. shinobi for flatline surprise if the opponent gets cheeky after seeing only code gates. this version runs 2 more ice than polish tennin, also. decided againast chum because i dont think you want to give the runner options to make successful runs and deny your tokens. mother goddess seems good enough to play in here, a 4 for 4 etr code gate.
at 2 higher strength, i’m thinking of wormhole as only a 1 less tax than tollbooth. it is also a bit more resilient to parasite, and shutdown.
Nope, this deck is meant to accentuate portals, and it does it well. It makes the servers taxing, even the small code gates. More than once I’ve had a portal save my quandary from being trashed. One game, the runner even gave up on the parasites on my quandary and tollbooth because of scoring 2 of them. Executive Boot Camp really lets me pick up the pace when I need to just have rezzed ice for portals to give me money, and there’s chum and quandary for easy choices, and enigma and lotus, when I just want to have a rezzed field for those runners whom you’d want rezzed ice for, like nasir, leela, and valencia. I chose sensei over inazuma, because while inazuma can catch the runner off guard, and hit them with a tollbooth they can’t break from, most of the time, it’s not that useful when you’re hitting end the run ice. Sensei gives AIs a hard time, and any 2 to break breaker. It makes your chums better when your ice gets parasited behind it. It’s worth trying to make it work in this deck. I’d play 3 jacksons, but the draw is usually so good, I don’t really NEED jackson, and I’d just want one in case of a really long noise game, I wouldn’t go to 1 jackson, but I’d really like 2 EBCs. medical breakthrough is good, through and through, but I eventually want to score out of a remote in this deck because it gives the runner a target I can manipulate, most of the time a good napd will totally frustrate the runner, and it’s a good bait card, I can deal with losing an napd so I can score an eden fragment or the future perfect. It definitely takes finesse, but this deck does solid work. 3 wormholes is a little much, sense I don’t really want to see it too early, and I intend on making it free sometime in the game, but I’ll rez it when I need it anyway, though it’s usually free. Also, sometimes the raw strength of wormhole is better than tollbooth, and variety in ice is key to keeping the runner out from time to time.
tl:dr Str 10 wormholes and str 7 chums that end the run are too good to pass up.
So, as bizarre as it sounds, is this the deck concept that makes Tenma Line worth a slot or two? Being able to spend a click to save an otherwise worthless Chum, Sensei, Marker, etc. that found its way out of position might be worth it.
If your looking to be competitive having one barrier in there isn’t a bad idea to force the barrier breaker. Sentry breakers will usually hit the table anyways but not always.
100 pct correct. The all code gate thing will work once, but it isn’t going to fly if you are playing a big tournament where scouting (either intentional or otherwise) is inevitable, especially if there is a cut, where to win you will probably have to face someone multiple times
To me, something like this is a one night deck. You show up, get your laughs when they aren’t expecting it, and then retire it before they stop wasting resources on the other beaker types.
Even just a single etr barrier and single roto turret would help quite a bit for repeat play.
I’d consider things that aren’t easily answered by parasite, but agree with the rest. Get some ice in there that isn’t code gates and it makes your code gates better also helps against random counters to this deck like Gordian
I was burnt badly by an Encrypted deck running Ichi, it also had a couple of ice walls he rezed when I discarded my barrier breakers. Could I reccommend Chimera?
maybe a couple morph ICE like wendigo would be really good, making the runner respect them and go fetch a fracter, knowing that as soon as they do its going straight back to being a code gate?
yes, wendigo would be baller in this deck, basically a 2-for-4 strength must-break, that could force a barrier breaker as well. Hard to find the influence, though…
Also, no matter what, do not drop the tollbooths - without them, the highest strength ETRs you have would be 2 strength, leaving you very susceptible to parasite dismantling your servers (wormhole can’t help if there aren’t any ETRs rezzed…
I definitely agree that you need at least one Ichi or Rototurret or other destroyer. They make Wormhole ever so much more dangerous, because once that’s rezzed you can’t just take the bounce on Wormhole, which is what I’d probably do, myself, if I couldn’t get in otherwise, given that there’s no real painful subroutines on most of those code gates.
Making it a destroyer suddenly? Oooof.
Occurs to me also that Orion, for all that it’s a buttload of influence out of faction, would could as a code gate for this. Not a recommendation in the least, more just an observation/realization.
I think the theory is that runners generally don’t want to facecheck Jinteki and eat the net damage so theoretically, the sentry breaker is on the table before they figure out you don’t have any sentries? However, if they’re criminal they will have only had to play a faerie and never lost it.
Grail would make merlins even more dope, and allow you to get some “-> trash a program” in crafty ways, and all your ICE more relevent since they have to respect grail now, and would help chew through faeries or problem breakers like torch or gordian.
I think you could also make a strong case for archer, even if you have to dump an encrypted portals, its only 2-influence and if they aren’t respecting the option of a surprise sentry, archer could wipe the grin off their face pretty quick.
They’re likely to avoid getting hit with the Rototurret or Ichi, yeah. They’re less likely to avoid ever getting hit by the Wormholes, even with a decoder out. It’s expensive and/or painful to break with anything short of D4V1D, and letting it be that or ETR means that upon rezzing it they can’t just let it fire and most likely end the run (since draining them of a click or a couple credits and letting them hit a more easily broken piece of ice is unlikely to be helpful.
I think as the O&C cards become a bit more internalized, people will be pretty good about respecting the wormhole rez, especially if its sitting with advancements on it) and a surprise rez will be ~~ as frequent as getting somebody with any other surprise splashes (frequent, but unreliable IMO).
I do TOTALLY agree with you that you need some subroutines that give Wormhole some teeth, since right now its pretty much just a 9/7 ETR (which is nothing to shake a stick at).
I think being able to resolve either of inazuma’s subroutines, which are both conditionally very useful. Universal Connectivity Fee: simply for the option of a closed accounts, if not, at least you have UCF doing work wherever you put it. You could also use it to gain multiples of your unique ICE, chiefly Susan.
Saw a guy running a code gate only deck yesterday with Checkpoint. He seemed to be having fun with Chum into Checkpoint, wasn’t really paying attention to how well it was doing.
my favorite favorite wormhole sub is Data Raven. I feel that ICE was already on the verge of being splashable in Weyland, and with wormhole to make it (potentially) actually stick? wow, so powerful. Might even be good enough to make Helium Deposit worthwhile (though… probably not)
you’re not wrong, but paying 9 for a trace3 is kind of underwhelming. though side note data raven has been and continues to be a powerful splash, wormhole or not. You still don’t need Helium Deposits unless for some reason you are playing tagstorm and no midseason.
Sure, but you MIGHT. And even if you advance it, its an effective value of 6. So the only way its incredible is tricking it down with Tenin, and presuming a somewhat generous successful run every other turn, you’re looking at 6 rounds before its free, so you have to at least take into consideration the likelihood you don’t get your wormhole at a steep discount, and consider what you WOULD pay 9 credits for.
also helps against random counters to this deck like Gordian